1. Field
The present technology relates to medicament dispensing systems. More particularly, embodiments of the technology involve a medicament dispensing system operable to pre-load medicaments at individual robotic cell multiplexor (RCM) stations and dispense the medicaments into vials of varying sizes.
2. Related Art
Pharmacists spend an increasing amount of time educating patients about proper use and handling of medicaments and pharmaceuticals. While this trend toward more patient counseling increases patients' knowledge about medicaments and decreases improper use of medicaments, it leaves less time for pharmacists to fill and dispense medicaments.
Automated medicament dispensing systems have been developed to automate some medicament filling and dispensing steps to allow pharmacists to spend more time with patients. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,337,919 discloses an automatic medicament dispensing machine having a plurality of dispensing cells for storing and dispensing various types of solid medicament units such as pills, capsules and caplets. Each cell includes a rotatable platen presenting a driven gear. A manipulator arm of the machine retrieves an empty vial and positions the vial adjacent the outlet of a selected dispensing cell. The manipulator arm includes a drive gear that engages the driven gear of the cell for selective rotation thereof in order to dispense medicament from the cell. The filled vial is then positioned on a discharge conveyor for subsequent handling such as labeling.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,897,024 discloses a medicament dispensing cell for singulating various types of solid medicament to be dispensed one at a time. In this way, a counting device attached to either the medicament dispensing cell or the manipulator arm below the outlet of a selected dispensing cell may count the number of solid medicament units that have been dispensed into the vial and may stop dispensing once the desired count is reached.
However, the medicament dispensing cells disclosed above have the disadvantage of requiring that the manipulator arm hold the vial under one of the medicament dispensing cells until each pill has been counted and dispensed into the vial. Therefore the speed at which multiple prescriptions can be filled is greatly limited by the speed at which individual medicament units can be dispensed by a medicament dispensing cell.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved system and apparatus for dispensing medicament units that does not suffer from the problems and limitations of the prior art.